Spiritually Correct Candidates?

Faith shows up in weird places. When I was a young man in Oklahoma, I would occasionally see classified ads in the newspaper, advertising the services of a “Christian Dog Groomer.” Peculiar. Why would anyone with a dirty dog care about the theology of the person working at the Pooch Parlor? All I’d want to know is whether the groomer is good with animals.

It’s the same with political candidates. Why should it matter to me if Barak Obama is a Muslim or a Christian, or McCain a Baptist? I want a president who’s a skilled manager and consensus builder, who will uphold the Constitution and execute the laws fairly. Their economic philosophy is important to me. But whether they’re Catholic, or Mormon, or Jewish is immaterial, except as private beliefs spill over into public policies.

That’s evidently what America’s framers thought when they wrote the Constitution. The only mention of religion appears in Article Six, which states there will be no religious tests for public office. Had spiritual correctness been required, probably none of our first four presidents—neither Washington, nor Adams, nor Jefferson, nor Madison-- would ever have been elected.

What would our founders have thought when Campbell Brown asked the Democratic candidates about their faith at a forum last spring in Grantham, Pennsylvania. Addressing Hillary Clinton, Brown observed that “You said in an interview last year that you believe in the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. And you have actually felt the presence of the Holy Spirit on many occasions.”

Mr. Brown then went on to ask Hillary to “share some of those occasions with us.”

Why is that the voter’s concern? The electorate at the time had every right to learn about Hillary’s health care plan and hear her views on NAFTA. But her encounters with the Holy Spirit should have had no bearing on her campaign. The height of indecency came when Mitt Romney’s underwear became a media topic. Bloggers wondered, exactly what do the Latter Day Saints wear under their trousers? The proper answer, of course, is that it’s none of our damn business.

George Washington said that when he needed a job done on his Mount Vernon estate, he was an equal opportunity employer, willing to hire “Mohometans, Jews, or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists” so long as they were able workers. Perhaps we should apply the same common sense standard to our current crop of candidates. They may be Muslims, Jews, Christians or Atheists. The question is, are they up to the job?